Anti-corruption drive pushes PH’s rank among 16 countries
On the back of government leadership that puts priority to curbing corruption, the Philippines emerged as the most improved country in the 2016 perceptions survey conducted by international think tank Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. (PERC).
In the survey, PERC asked respondents, who were residents and expats in the covered countries, the following question: “How do you grade the problem of corruption in the country in which you are working?”
Within a range of 0 to 10, with the former being the best score and the latter being the worst, the Philippines’ earned 7.05 points. This marked a 5.1-percent improvement from its score of 7.43 points last year.
All the other 15 countries registered either weaker, less improved, or unchanged score.
The latest score of the Philippines improved its ranking to 10th place this year from 12th place last year. The annual survey covers 16 countries—14 in Asia, plus the United States and Australia.
Moreover, the latest score and rank of the Philippines in the 2016 survey marked the country’s best performancein 7 years.
The score of the Philippines was the highest among scores of covered developing countries, beating China’s 7.5 points, Cambodia’s 7.75, Thailand’s 7.67, Vietnam’s 7.92, Indonesia’s 8.0, and India’s 8.13.
PERC credited the country’s encouraging performance in the latest annual survey largely to the “clean” image that President Benigno Aquino III brought to public governance.
“The Philippines was the only country we surveyed where there was an improvement of more than 5 percent [in the score]. This is an example of how leadership really can make a difference,” PERC said in its 2016 survey report titled “Asian Intelligence”released recently.
Countries and territories with higher per-capita incomes registered the following scores: South Korea at 6.17 points, Macau at 6.15, Taiwan at 6.08, United States at 4.61, Hong Kong at 3.4, Japan at 3.0, Australia at 2.67, and Singapore at 1.67.
Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima welcomed the result of the survey saying: “Over the past 6 years, we have registered marked improvements across every significant indicator and international ranking. It’s clear as day: President Aquino’s good governance agenda has driven up this virtuous cycle.”
“With the wind on our backs, we ought to double down on rooting out corruption—the better to optimize our public resources to invest in our people,” Purisima added.
The Investor Relations Office (IRO) said improvement in the Philippines’ score and rank in PERC’s Asian Intelligence survey is positive for the country’s credit ratings. This is because results of this survey are used as inputs to the Word Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs), which in turn are used by credit rating agencies in assessing creditworthiness of economies.
There were at least 100 respondents per country in PERC’s Asian Intelligence survey, except for Macau and Cambodia where there were 89 and 85 respondents, respectively.
